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Show MONDAY, JUNE J, 2002 , ***** Jfi -- ~- - § nn 3franrisro ( Etyronklr ~~~ -- • - NATION & WORLD Bush climate plan says adapt to inevitable Consequences of a warmer Earth Some of the Bush administration's projections for the environment, if emissions of greenhouse gases contii'me to increase. jjgjjjjjj POSITIVE • Drought is a threat everywhere. u Crop productivity is expected to • Some ecosystems, such as al- improve. pine meadows and barrier islands, „ Forest growth is likely to in- may disappear. crease • Damage to coastal buildings and roads is expected from storms and rising sea levels. • Public health may be at risk from heat stress, pollution and disease. New Yak Times Cutting gas emissions not recommended By Andrew C. Revkin NRWYOKK TIMES In a stark shift for the Bush administration, the United States has sent a ciimale report to the United Nations detailing specific and far- reaching effects it says global warming will inflict on the American environment. In the report, the administration also for the first time places most of the blame for recent global warming on human actions - mainly the burning of fossil fuels that send heat- trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But while the report says the United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades - " very likely" seeing the disruption of snow- fed water supplies, more stifling heal waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for example - it does not propose any major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases. Instead, it recommends adapting to inevitable changes instead of making rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases to limit warming, which is the approach favored by many environmental groups and countries seeking to enact the Kyoto Protocol, a climate treaty written during the Clinton administration that was rejected by Bush. The new document, " U. S. Climate Action Report 2002," strongly concludes that no matter what is done to cut emissions in the future, nothing can be done about the environmental consequences of several decades' worth of carbon dioxide and other heat- trapping gases already in the atmosphere. Its strategy of adapting to the inevitable fits in neatly with the climate plan Bush announced in February, which calls for voluntary measures that would allow gas emissions to continue to rise, with the goal of slowing the rate of growth. Yet the new report's predictions present a sharp contrast to the administration's previous statements on climate change, in which President Bush always spoke in generalities and stressed the need for much more research to resolve scientific questions. The new report, in fact, puts a substantial distance between the administration and the energy industry and related companies, like automakers, many of which have continued to run publicity and lobbying campaigns questioning the validity of the science pointing to damaging outcomes from global warming. The distancing could be an effort to rebuild Bush's environmental credentials after a bruising stretch of defeats on stances that favor energy production over conservation, notably the failure to win a Senate vole opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploratory oil drilling. But the report has alienated environmentalists, too. Late last week, after it was posted on the Web site of the Environmental Protection Agency, private environmental groups pounced on it. The Bush administration now adrtiits that global warming will change America's most unique wild places and wildlife forever," said Mark Van Putten, the president of the National Wildlife Federation, a private environmental group. " How can it acknowledge global wanning is a disaster in the making and then refuse to help solve the probtesn, especially when solutions a « s 80 clear?" The report warns of the substantial disruption of snow- fed water supplies, the loss of coastal and mountain ecosystems and more frequent heat waves. " A few ecosystems, such as alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains and some barrier islands, are likely to disappear entirely in some areas," the report says. " Other ecosystems, such as southeastern forests, are likely to experience major species shifts or break up into a mosaic of grasslands, woodlands and forests." o |